Trademark infringement

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So i got trademark infringement notice from a company(it is a very huge brand).

I have the brand name in my domain name but i am not selling anything on domain which will harm the reputation or cause any kind of loss for the company, blog is just for information purpose(articles and monetized with adsense). Further i have already 301 redirected the trademark domain to another domain with no trademark in it. Also i have mentioned in bold at the top that "This site has no association with this brand" . Page 1 and 2 of google is filled with sites having their brand name in the domain, its just that i am ranking #1.

What would you do in this situation? site has like 30k visitors per day coming from google. I have already done 301 redirect and in few days domain will be removed from google and replaced with new domain. In the notice they asked me to delete the domain or drop it, the next renewal date for the domain is in 40 days... I do not mind dropping the domain(i will probably drop it if doing 301 to non-trademark domain is also considered infringement), but just wondering if there is any way out from this?

i have not responded to their email yet, i still have 4 days. They gave me 8 days to respond...

looking forward to your suggestions and any personal experience with this stuff?

thanks
 
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no personal experience ...... but
if you have there brand name in the domain you will loos it.
they have a budget and lawyers which are better than yours so is would try to sell it to them.

write some like the domain is not active any more and its redirected. you would be interested in selling .....
maybe they make a offer. better than dropping.

my personal opinion
 
W9go said:
no personal experience ...... but
if you have there brand name in the domain you will loos it.
they have a budget and lawyers which are better than yours so is would try to sell it to them.

write some like the domain is not active any more and its redirected. you would be interested in selling .....
maybe they make a offer. better than dropping.

my personal opinion
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I do not intend to sell this domain to them, since its an illegal thing to do. What i am asking is if i send them an email saying that the domain is redirected and i will let it drop in 40 days, will they allow or i can't even redirect it ?
 
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One of my 2y/o sites got deleted overnight because of this, subdomain name was similar to one huge watches brand.

I just had to leave it, I got pressure from them, domain register and my hosting.
 
Adrian112 said:
One of my 2y/o sites got deleted overnight because of this, subdomain name was similar to one huge watches brand.

I just had to leave it, I got pressure from them, domain register and my hosting.
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Who deleted that? You? registrar or Host?

I have not got any such email from hosting or registrar yet...
 
Floof said:
Hey Leena,

do you know much about the whole walmart.horse story? It will likely be of interest to you given your current predicament. Your current problem is that if the company is huge, theyre going to win. They have more money, better lawyers, etc. Either way, it sucks. Hopefully nothing comes from it, but yeah. Have a look at some of the story of the walmart.horse domain just to see what happened and how it was handled.
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Hi

but i have already redirected the domain to another domain which does not have any trademark, and what exactly do you mean by win? They will win the domain right? I do not intend to even take it that far, i have asked google to deindex the domain, all i will do is redirect it to my new domain, is that going to be a problem still?
 
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leena said:
So i got trademark infringement notice from a company(it is a very huge brand).

I have the brand name in my domain name but i am not selling anything on domain which will harm the reputation or cause any kind of loss for the company, blog is just for information purpose(articles and monetized with adsense). Further i have already 301 redirected the trademark domain to another domain with no trademark in it. Also i have mentioned in bold at the top that "This site has no association with this brand" . Page 1 and 2 of google is filled with sites having their brand name in the domain, its just that i am ranking #1.

What would you do in this situation? site has like 30k visitors per day coming from google. I have already done 301 redirect and in few days domain will be removed from google and replaced with new domain. In the notice they asked me to delete the domain or drop it, the next renewal date for the domain is in 40 days... I do not mind dropping the domain(i will probably drop it if doing 301 to non-trademark domain is also considered infringement), but just wondering if there is any way out from this?

i have not responded to their email yet, i still have 4 days. They gave me 8 days to respond...

looking forward to your suggestions and any personal experience with this stuff?

thanks
Click to expand...

Don't take my word for it,look it up, but what I learned is that if you register a website name and you know there is a company using that name that you're not allowed to do that or something in that direction.
 
I would wait and see if they file anything with ICANN. Even if you get a UDRP (Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy) they usually give you 45-60 days, which is well within your 40 day window. If the email isn't from a lawyer, it was probably auto generated, if it was from a lawyer, give it a few days and see if they follow up. Just read up on UDRP, cybersquatting is a crime, but since you are using the domain for something that is unrelated, and you clearly post non-affiliation, you should be in the clear until ICANN sends you something.

Just my 2 cents. Good luck!
 
Hello

it depends first on which TLD we are talking about, as different laws apply. And secondly in which country you reside. The hoster deletion problem is in the end just hoster's decision, that can be taken care of by changing hoster.

If it is a com domain and the brand is ONLY a brand name, then they would be fully in their rights.

But anyway you should never communicate with them (until you really know what you are doing / decided for a route / contacted a lawyer), as that can be seen as a "admit of guilt" !
 
Best to stay well away from using trademarks and brand names in domain names. A few years ago i was taken to court by the olympics governing body for copyright infringement. Let's just say it was months of nightmare.
I didn't realise a 2,000 year old event was under copyright, everything to do with the olympics is copyrighted.
I learnt never to use anything remotely associated with a trademark or brand.
Lesson learned the hard way - there is no way out of it.
Just put it down to experience and move on
 
Happened to me 2 times, huge brand as well. They even called me from USA on my cell.

First time I sold domain on GoDaddy, 2nd time I decided to promote their competitors instead of them. Fuck them, if they dont like free promotion I bet competitors will.
 
blogzandstuff said:
Best to stay well away from using trademarks and brand names in domain names. A few years ago i was taken to court by the olympics governing body for copyright infringement. Let's just say it was months of nightmare.
I didn't realise a 2,000 year old event was under copyright, everything to do with the olympics is copyrighted.
I learnt never to use anything remotely associated with a trademark or brand.
Lesson learned the hard way - there is no way out of it.
Just put it down to experience and move on
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How big of a hit did your wallet take?
 
Hey... Internet is a free world and a free word... Dont let anyone control it.
 
Doesn't it depend on what you're doing with the site?

Like I could own a mcdonalds domain name or similar, but if I was selling shoes not hamburgers then they would have no claim because it's unrelated to their business. It was my understanding then that for trademarks it's the name + the activity that's protected. If you're conducting another business albeit using a similar name then they have no claim.

That said, they're probably bigger than you are and so can bully you into submission. Important thing IMO is not to back down first time around, if they think you might be up for a fight then they'll likely make you a commercial offer.

But you're probably best talking to a brief. It's been a lot of years since I was in the legal game.
 
tell them that you have removed the site from domain. and keep on the 301 they can't do shit if domain is empty without any site.

few days back Donald trump purchased names of competitors and redirected them.
 
achtung said:
Doesn't it depend on what you're doing with the site?

Like I could own a mcdonalds domain name or similar, but if I was selling shoes not hamburgers then they would have no claim because it's unrelated to their business. It was my understanding then that for trademarks it's the name + the activity that's protected. If you're conducting another business albeit using a similar name then they have no claim.

That said, they're probably bigger than you are and so can bully you into submission. Important thing IMO is not to back down first time around, if they think you might be up for a fight then they'll likely make you a commercial offer.

But you're probably best talking to a brief. It's been a lot of years since I was in the legal game.
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depends on the country... some countries don't even have copyright law.
But probably even in USA it needs to be a direct match, and as already stated, the term in question has to be ONLY that brand and nothing else (for example Coca Cola, cola is a nut, coca is a plant).
 
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